The FileBoss V3 Interface

Create New Tab:

  Creates a new tab

Click the button itself to create a tab showing the default folder or click the down arrow to create a tab from a list of common and favorite folders including any folders that you have bookmarked.

Search for Files:  

Click the down arrow to the left (or below) to select from a number of different routines for find files such as:

 

Click the button itself for quick access to the last type of search you performed or press Ctrl+Shift+F. Whenever FileBoss starts the button defaults to search

for files by name.

Copy to the Clipboard:

  Copies the selected files and folders to the clipboard where they can be accessed by FileBoss and other programs.

This is frequently used with the Paste command.

 

Both the Copy and Paste commands work the same way they do in most other Windows programs except that pasting into FileBoss takes advantage of its sophisticated copy engine to provide extra functionality.

Uses the selected files or folders (from either the Navigation or Contents Windows) to complete the action.

Paste from Clipboard:  

Pastes files and folders from the Clipboard to the current object in the tab.

 

Both the Copy and Paste commands work the same way they do in most other Windows programs except that pasting into FileBoss takes advantage of its sophisticated copy engine to provide extra functionality.

Drop Mode:  

Click the button to toggle between the Copy and Move drop modes.
To change to Create Shortcut mode click the down arrow and select it.The button on the toolbar will change to reflect the currently active drop mode.

 

About Dropping Files on FileBoss

Drop Mode controls what will happen when files and folders are dropped in FileBoss nor matter how the drag was started e.g. from within FileBoss, Windows Explorer or another program. When files and folders are dragged from FileBoss and dropped on another program that program decides what to do with them and this setting is ignored.

Time Display:

  Clicking the button selects between the three ways FileBoss will display file times.

 

The button itself changes to reflect the current time mode.

Sticky Select:  

Click the button to toggle Sticky Mode on and off

When on Sticky Selectd allows you to select multiple files and folders by just clicking on each without holding down the Ctrl key.

You can even select multiple ranges of files without fear of clearing previous selections. When in Sticky Select mode you can temporarily return to normal mode by holding down the Ctri key or by just clicking this button again.

 

Show Windows Panels

Click the down arrow and the select which of the side-bar panels you would like to see. By default these panels are attached to the right side of FileBoss's main window.

Help Guide provides quick access to common help topics which are arranged by topic groups.

History (Logs) document what FileBoss has done during different operations such as copy and rename as well as general operations. There are three history windows: Summary, Details and Errors. The contents of these logs can be highlighted and copied to the clipboard or even continuosly streamed to disk.

 

Tab Groups: 

Creates a new tab group or moves the current tab to a new tab goup.

 

The options available on the drop down menu depends on the current state of tab groups. For instance if there are already two or more vertical tab groups the Create and Move Tab to a horizontal group will not be present as verical and horizontal groups can not be active at the same time.

Click the button itself to perform the default action.

 

Favorite Folders: 

Customizable list of favorite folders

Select a folder from the drop down list to display it in the current tab (if the current tab is a virtual folder, a new explorer tab will be created).

You can add the current explore tab by clicking the Add "X:\xxxx" item or manual edit the list with Edit List.

(Note that the default list of favorite folders is normally much more extensive the the abreviated display to the right.)

 

 

File Filters:  

Personalized file filters for Explore Tabs

Click on any of the listed filters (or any that you may add with either the Add Filter or Edit Filter List commands).

Note that you can both include or exclude file patterns. To exclude all files matching a certain pattern preceded that pattern with a minus sign (-). Multiple patterns are spearated with the bar (|) character.

Click the button itself to either cancel the current filter (show all) or to re-apply the last filter.

 

Dual Tab Mode:

The Dual Tab button turns Dual Tab Mode on and off. The Down Arrow on the button will display a menu of choices appropriate the he current state (at the left is displayed the menu for when Dual Tab Mode is on and files or folders have been selected in the active tab).

When Dual Tab Mode is on two other buttons will be dispalyed;

Comp. Turns on automatic comparison of the two displayed folders show which files are older, newer, or lonely in each folder.

Link Turns on linking the two folders in the Navigation Window so that when you move to a new folder in one Tab its counter part folder (if it exists) is displayed in the other folder. This is handy when Comparison mode is on and the two tabs have very similar navigation structure.

 

 

Every tab has its own toolbar (though they can be turned off using the commands on the View menu).

Starting from the left:

The letters in the green circles show the available drives. Drives with removeable media such as CD or USB drives are only shown when the contain media.

Click on a drive symbol to view a list of recently visited folders on that drive. Click on an entry to display in the curren folder. The button near to the right end represents recently visited network folders.

The x at rhe far right closes the tab.

 

Every tab has its own status bar (though they can be turned off using the commands on the View menu).

The left most side of the status bar will display the number of items currently selected and the total size (folders are counted but their size is not included int he total size).

The right side displays the full path to the current folder.

Navigation Window

In a normal Explorer Tab the Navigation Window controls what is displayed in the Contents Window to its left. In a Virtual Folder (the results of a search) the Navigation Windows allows you to quickly move around in results (just double click a folder.

 

 

 

 

Two Context Menus

FileBoss has two context menus (right-click popup menus). The first is the standard menu used by Windows Explorer and most other file management routines. The second is FileBoss's own context menu. You can switch between the two by clicking at the top of the menu either Windows Explorer Menu >> or FileBoss Menu >> as appropriate. FileBoss will remember the last type of menu you used and display it the next time it is needed.

 

Displays either the contents of the folder selected in the Navigation Window to the left (Explorer Tabs) or the ressults of a Search (Virtual Folder Tab).

Selected entries have a gold background (or yellow depending on your monitor) and the current enty - used by some of context menu commands - has its name displayed in red.

In the above fragment there are three files, the first two of which are selected.

Displaying folders in the Contents view can be turned on and off by clicking the folders button on the Tab Toolbar.

 

Click a column header to sort that column. Click it again to reverse the sort.

Right-click anywhere over any column header to display a popup menu of availble columns that you can display or hide. From that same menu you can also specify that the current arrangement is the default that that type of tab e.g., explore view or virtual folders.

 

The panel tabs (which can be moved to any of the four sides of the main application window) display the panel they represennt.

See the discription of the Windows button for how this works. Using the drop down menu from the Windows button these tabs are always available even if their tabs have been hidden.

Copy To...

Copy to one or more targets

Opens the copy dialog where you can copy the selected entries (from either the Navigation or Contents Windows) with complete control over the operation.

To copy to more than one destination separate the target folders with the bar character (|) in the dialog.

 

Backup if Newer

Copies files to the specified detination(s) if and only if the files either don't already exist there or if the files being copied are newer than the files that are there.

This is a great general purpose copy routine for if the files or folders don't already exist FileBoss just performs a normal copy but if they do exist only older files will be overwritten and no time is wasted re-copying files that haven't been modified.

 

Move To...

Moves files from one location to another using standard Windows Move routines.

 

Duplicate Files or Folders

Creates excact fuplicates of selected files or whole folders in the same folder as the current selections. A dialog lets you specify how you want to name the new duplicates. You can even make two or more copies in one action.

 

Recycle

Sends selected objects to Windows Recycle Bin

Unless the warnings have been turned off a message box will ask for confirmation.

 

Delete

Deletes selected objects permanently

Unless the warnings have been turned off a message box will ask for confirmation.

 

Attributes...

Allows you to change the attributes (even NTFS attributes if available) and times of files and folders.

 

Touch...

To quickly change file attributes and file times (and even of folders) use the long revered Touch command.

 

Rename...

Invokes the Rename Dialog

 

You can rename the selected files and folders using dedicated renaming routines to rename most anyway you want.